Sheriff: Calif. teen planned attack on classmates TAFT, Calif. (AP) — A 16-year-old student armed with a shotgun walked into a rural California high school on Thursday, shot one student and fired at others and missed before a teacher and another staff member talked him into surrendering, officials said. The teen victim was in critical but stable condition, and the suspect, whose pockets were stuffed with ammunition, was still being interrogated, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said at a ...

High-speed ferry strikes NYC dock; dozens injured NEW YORK (AP) — A high-speed ferry loaded with hundreds of commuters from New Jersey crashed into a dock in lower Manhattan on Wednesday during the morning rush hour, seriously injuring 11 people, including one who suffered a severe head wound falling down a stairwell. Scores of people who had been standing, waiting to disembark, were hurled to the deck or launched into walls by the impact, which came after the catamaran Seastreak Wall Street ...

Obama Cabinet shuffle taking shape WASHINGTON (AP) — The composition of President Barack Obama’s second term Cabinet became clearer Wednesday, with Labor Secretary Hilda Solis resigning and three other members of the president’s team deciding to stay on amid concerns about diversity in Obama’s inner circle. Solis, a former California congresswoman and one of the highest-ranking Hispanics in the Cabinet, said she was departing after leading the department during the economic sto...

Violence plays role in shorter US life expectancy WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States suffers far more violent deaths than any other wealthy nation, due in part to the widespread possession of firearms and the practice of storing them at home in a place that is often unlocked, according to a report released Wednesday by two of the nation’s leading health research institutions. Gun violence is just one of many factors contributing to lower U.S. life expectancy, but the finding took on urgency ...

Mom who shot intruder inspires gun control foes LOGANVILLE, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia mother who shot an intruder at her home has become a small part of the roaring gun control debate, with some firearms enthusiasts touting her as a textbook example of responsible gun ownership. Melinda Herman grabbed a handgun and hid in a crawl space with her two children when a man broke in last week and approached the family at their home northeast of Atlanta, police said. Herman called her husband on the ph...

NYC crane collapses at construction site; 7 hurt NEW YORK (AP) — With the popping of cables and the snapping of metal, a 200-foot crane collapsed onto a building under construction near the East River waterfront Wednesday, injuring seven people, three of whom needed to be extricated from underneath the fallen machinery. The red crane toppled around 2:30 p.m., sprawling across the metal scaffolding and wood planking that made up the first floor skeleton of a residential building in the New Yo...

White House says ’no backup plan’ to debt ceiling WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is dismissing suggestions to sidestep Congress to meet the nation’s debt obligations, declaring that it is Congress’ responsibility to pay the bills of the United States. President Barack Obama’s adamant stand that he will not negotiate with Congress over raising the nation’s borrowing limit and Republican demands that a debt ceiling vote be linked to spending cuts have prompted a creative outburst of alternat...

US troop plan in Afghanistan follows Iraq playbook WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s the same debate, the same numbers and practically the same plan, but the White House is working harder to keep troops in Afghanistan than it did in similar but failed discussions in Iraq in 2011. Security remains shaky in both war zones, but current and former U.S. officials say the Obama administration cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan after a dozen years of fighting and an ongoing threat by al-Qaida and its extremis...

Court wary of warrantless blood tests in DUI cases WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court appeared reluctant Wednesday to allow police to routinely order blood tests for unwilling drunken-driving suspects without at least trying to obtain a search warrant from a judge. The court heard arguments Wednesday in a case about a disputed blood test from Missouri, against the backdrop of a serious national problem of more than 10,000 deaths from crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers in 2010, about o...

Review: Aereo makes it tempting to cut cable TV NEW YORK (AP) — Broadcast networks make many of their shows available on the Internet, but you usually have to wait at least a day after an episode airs on television. A subscription service called Aereo breaks those shackles and makes network programs available right away. That sounds too good to be true, and in a sense it is. First, it works only in New York City for now, though Aereo said Tuesday that it will expand to 22 more U.S. regions ...

Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there’s no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported encouraging signs that one day, there might be. Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too. How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors in the ovaries or the lining of the uterus, an...

Boeing defends 787 reliability; shares rally Boeing said Wednesday it has “extreme confidence” in its 787 Dreamliner even as federal investigators try to determine the cause of a fire that has prompted new worries about the plane. The fire happened Monday in one of the plane’s lithium ion batteries. Mike Sinnett, Boeing’s chief engineer for 787, wouldn’t comment on that specific incident, but told reporters that the battery is designed to avoid overheating and the area around the battery...

US seared during hottest year on record by far WASHINGTON (AP) — America set an off-the-charts heat record in 2012. A brutal combination of a widespread drought and a mostly absent winter pushed the average annual U.S. temperature last year up to 55.32 degrees Fahrenheit, the government announced Tuesday. That’s a full degree warmer than the old record set in 1998. Breaking temperature records by an entire degree is unprecedented, scientists say. Normally, records are broken by a tenth of ...

Self-portraits: Holmes sticks out tongue, has guns CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — The photos were chilling and enigmatic, just like their subject. In the pictures, taken on his IPhone hours before the Aurora movie theater massacre, accused gunman James Holmes mugs for the camera, sticks out his tongue and smiles as he holds a Glock under his face and displays his arsenal arrayed on his bed. Prosecutors who displayed the pictures at a hearing that ended Wednesday argued the photos display “identity, ...

Biden pledges urgent Obama action on gun control WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden vowed urgent action against gun violence in America Wednesday, pledging steps by the Obama administration that he said could “take thousands of people out of harm’s way” and improve the safety of millions more. But a day ahead of a meeting with the National Rifle Association, which has sunk past gun control efforts and is opposing any new ones, Biden signaled that the administration is mindful of poli...

Police: Florida clerk’s gun beats thief’s cattle prod TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Authorities say a Florida Panhandle man has been arrested after he tried to rob a convenience store with a cattle prod but was thwarted by a clerk with a gun. The Leon County Sheriff’s Office said Lance Tomberlin, 26, went into a store just outside Tallahassee on January 2, produced the cattle prod and demanded money from the clerk. Officials said he shocked the clerk several times before the clerk pulled a handgun. Au...

Wife says poisoned lottery winner had no enemies CHICAGO (AP) — The wife of a Chicago lottery winner who was poisoned with cyanide said Tuesday she was devastated by his death and cannot believe her husband could have had enemies. Shabana Ansari spoke to The Associated Press a day after news emerged that 46-year-old Urooj Khan’s death in July was the result of cyanide poisoning and not natural causes, as authorities initially concluded. Prosecutors, Chicago police and the Cook County Medical...

NY woman denies charge tied to firefighter ambush HENRIETTA, N.Y. (AP) — A woman charged in connection with two guns used in a former neighbor’s deadly Christmas Eve ambush of firefighters pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a state charge of filing a falsified business record. Neither 24-year-old Dawn Nguyen nor her lawyer spoke to reporters after the brief court appearance in Henrietta Town Court. Nguyen is free on the condition she not leave Monroe County except to attend college classes in a ne...

Detective: Holmes played puppets with paper bags CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — It was just hours after a deadly Colorado theater shooting, and James Holmes was not acting like a man accused of methodically planning the attack and booby trapping his apartment. As a police detective interviewed the suspect they’d picked up outside the theater, he started pretending the paper bags on his hands — meant to preserve gunshot residue — were puppets. The former neuroscience graduate student tried to jam a...